Forum:Main page, features, and other general improvements
As we all know, the main page isn't doing too hot when it comes to rotating the featured article, featured image, and featured pikmin. First, I would suggest that we bring back the poll. My next suggestion would be that we create a feature nomoinations page (if we don't already have one) for each of the features or a single page for all of them so the wiki's users can vote on them. In addition, we should create some rules for what sorts of images, articles, and pikmin species are eligible for nomination. On a tangent regarding game articles, I really think we should make some formatting guidelines for fanon game articles, area articles, character articles, cave articles, upgrade articles, and treasure articles, especially for new ones, and create help pages for creating each one of these articles. This would give the wiki a sense of order and consistancy as well as requiring an a certain amount of quality for each article. I would suggest we put a "quality warning" template on the page for a week before we delete it. Pages created by now inactive users should be fixed by another user if possible and kept on the wiki. Spelling and grammar errors aren't good enough reason to delete an article. If you see them, just fix them and leave the user a message asking them to fix their grammar. Suggested rules for image features *Must have proper licensing on their file page *Must be a good quality image (not poorly drawn or compiled, blurry/frizzy-edged, or small; I would not suggest simple recolors of concept art or images that mix two styles, such as 3D concept art with 2D "paint-ons"; though good drawings and other forms of 2D imagery by themselves are fine) *Must appear on a good quality article (good quality being defined as following rules pertaining to page formatting, having a good amount of information, and without spelling or grammar errors) *Must look cool (images with backgrounds or fanon "screenshots" are ideal but not required) and represent the wiki in a positive way Suggested rules for featured articles *Article must represent a good idea attatched to a good quality fan game or other project that is either well under way and being constantly improved or is completely finished *Article must follow rules relating to formatting as well as having a good amount of information and acceptable spelling and grammar *Article must display at least one good quality image of or directly relating to the topic of the article *Article must be complete and lack no information that needs to be added later Suggested rules for featured pikmin *Must be a good, original idea with a unique resistance, additional ability, and physical feature *Must follow article guidelines and have a good amount of information as well as displaying proper spelling and grammar. *Must be in at least one good fanon game or other project that is either well under way and being constantly improved or is completely finished *Must be complete and lack no information that needs to be added later *Must be shown in a feature-quality image I almost forgot, I think we should change the "Notes" section of the enemy page format to "Notes and additional information" and the "Appearance" section to a "Description" section (same thing but says additional descriptive information like "This is the first enemy in the game" and "This enemy is first encountered in the Blax cavern" in addition to the description of the appearance. That's all I have to say right now; I have some other ideas, but they'll have to wait until we tackle some of these big issues. Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? 11:17, 27 April 2012 (EDT) :Well, I hate to say this, Vol, but you have so many ideas on wiki improvement and the wiki itself has so little users. We are going to have to wait until more users arrive; this will happen probably when school is out (as many users complain about it). But these are good ideas, however, and, as I said above, might be achievable when more users are here, willing to pitch in and help. :I really do like the idea of switching around featured articles/images/Pikmin on the main page, but as there are only so many of these, we'll have to switch it (likely) every two weeks. Yet, the wiki is still growing, albeit at a slow rate. I have an idea about the featured article. Maybe we could split the featured article into categories, such as games/areas/caves/treasures etc, and hop about these categories. :I like the quality warning idea, but again, there is a flaw with this: users will often make a page with little to no quality, then not edit here for a very long time. By the time they've returned, they'll find that their page has been deleted, and would be greatly disappointed. But it is really their fault as they never checked the recent changes, to find a quality warning template on their page. (Because of this, we need to somehow implement a way to encourage users to stay longer...) However, adding onto this, there are the other two templates, the high quality article and the medium quality article. We need to look through every article and figure out which template is suitable for them. That way, we'll know which pages are fine and which pages need improving. :So perhaps, maybe, these ideas will work. But Pikmin 3 isn't very far away, and the New Play Control! Pikmin 2 will arrive in North America this June (FINALLY), so an influx of users will hopefully happen soon. ::Thanks for your opinion, PikFan. Relating to the number of users, even if we can't put any new guidelines into action, we can at least still set them up before all the summer users come so we don't have to worry about it then (Plus, I'll be gone most of the summer). ::As for the time for switching, if we managed to do it every two weeks it would actually beat my expectations, as I was thinking of switching them at the start of every month. I like your idea of splitting up the features even more, but, like you said, we have a lack of articles on the wiki, though that is something I would really like to see. ::We can always give users who make low quality articles a warning on their talk page as well the first time and be a little more lenient, but it shouldn't take more than a couple of warnings to get the idea across to them. Also, if we put guidelines into place, articles that follow them will at least be medium quality, and really any article that has a good amount of info in addition to requirements would be high quality, and hopefully there won't be any worries about low quality. Also, I think we dropped the quality ranking idea, but I can't remember because it's been so long. ::Again, thanks for your thoughts and considerations, all of your points are good. :: 19:26, 27 April 2012 (EDT) :::First off, welcome back Vol. Secondly, I agree with pretty much all of what you've said, as well as PikFan's points. I personally think that the problem isn't lack of articles, but the lack of high quality articles. Also the lack of users, but E3 ought to fix that soon enough. However we do need to get some way to get the coming users to stay and contribute for a while. Like you have suggested, rotating around the featured things should hep a bit. However the problem is that we don't have enough quality things to keep the rotation going for too long, this pertains more to the Featured Pikmin and Images than Articles. My thought is to cut out one of the too in danger of being repeated, which in my opinion the Featured Pikmin should go. We can simply allow the various Pikmin to be the Featured Article , which not only adds more to that pool, but removes the Featured thing with the least amount of articles to choose from. :::I agree with the switching of Features every two weeks, however what PikFan suggested of splitting up the Features even further simply isn't possible at the current time. There are far too few users and far too few high-quality or even quality articles for that to happen right now, although when we have more activity this idea will certainly be looked at again. :::In addition to giving users that make low quality articles warnings, we should add some high-quality articles to the welcome message to give our new users an idea on how to write higher-quality articles. If a user ignores these and proceeds to make low-quality articles anyway, then the warning will be issued, and so on. The quality ranking idea, with the template included on every page that says the quality, has been discontinued. ::::I favour all of the aforementioned ideas. Currently I am banned from using the computer (thus resorting to a mobile phone) and cannot respond in such haste as I normally would with my computer. I believe that the wiki's due for a re-fueling to match it with that of the sparks Pikmin 3 is producing. This is the re-fueling I imagined, only better. Vol's return, PikFan's continued faithfulness, Sir Pikmin's handle on things, and all of the users' contributions are all the boost we need to grip the ideas and good techniques listed here. Currently I have nothing to offer, as my communal resourcefulness has dropped recently. I assure you; I will make a comeback. I will help. But for right now, I need to work on getting my computer back whilst maintaining a social life. I bid you all good luck, until next time. 12:52, 28 April 2012 (EDT) If we take the out, as Sir Pikmin has suggested, I think we should replace it with the poll. 17:33, 28 April 2012 (EDT) :I am assuming that you mean to replace the module on the Main Page that houses the Featured pikmin with one housing the Poll? In that case if someone is willing to keep up the polls and not let them be stagnant then I see no problem with that. ::Yes, I just changed it. Wiki-wide clean up Pikmin 3 has almost arrived, and I think it is time we do a massive clean-up of Pikmin Fanon. That is, attempt to fix up and organize articles, complete the help pages, and, in general, improve the wiki in every possible. Yet, I am feeling uncertain of this, as there is so little time and so little users. As such, we should try to achieve as much as possible, without pushing ourselves. The reason why I am trying to put pressure on this is because, when Pikmin 3 comes out, lots of people will be flooding to the Internet to try to glean information to help them with the game. It is only a matter of time before users stumble upon Pikmin Fanon and get interested. However, some users might be a bit persnickety about wiki structure, and if they see how some parts of our wiki are rather... disorganized, they may decide to leave. (This is how I discovered Pikmin Fanon — I was researching something and found it here, on Pikmin Fanon.) So, introduction aside, I'll try to make this as simple as possible, and divide the plan into steps. # We need to take a general look at the wiki, see what is good, what is lacking, and how we can improve it. Then, we can decide on a way that it would be efficient, understandable, and hopefully, relatively easy. #After our plan has been set up, we should try to cover two main aspects of the wiki: #*Cleaning up articles to satisfactory quality; #*Completing the Help Pages and any other related pages intended to aid the users of Pikmin Fanon. #Once the users begin flooding in, everyone should be prepared to help the many editors that are in need of assistance. I hope we can get this goal accomplished, and I, personally, am very excited for Pikmin 3! Please leave thoughts, opinions, and comments below. We all are excited. And I support you in this. I think the community portal and its lists of articles in need of work will be a great resource to use whilst improving pages. We have just under 100 days to accomplish this, so let's get cracking!